Techfugees Global Summit 2018: (re)watch the videos!

by Ambre

on December 4th, 2018

Techfugees held its second Global Summit last October 25-26 at Station F, the world’s biggest startups campus, in Paris.

During 2 days, more than 500 engineers, designers, researchers, social entrepreneurs, policymakers, impact investors, tech companies representatives and corporates partners came together to share their experience in building #tech4refugees through talks, workshops, networking, and pitches. Attendees came from 53 countries. One out of four was a refugee.

Let’s tech the borders down – Breaking barriers, building bridges

This year’s discussions focused on the challenges newcomers face as they settle into their new host societies, and what role technology can take in breaking down barriers and building bridges to enable inclusion.

The Access to Rights and Information: providing access to relevant and verified information about rights, laws and available services empowers vulnerable and displaced people, helping them protect themselves and their families, taking the first step towards successful inclusion.

Data Ethics: data is key to rights, to information, to safety and protection, while acquiring, cleaning, sorting and organising (big) data – for personal identities and for the purpose of disseminating true and correct information and as the basis for informed policy-making – is currently still onerous and hampered by differing standards of control, access and legacy systems.

Social Inclusion: once the migration has been completed and safety reached in a new host community, the challenging task of re-building a new life and integrating into a new society, culture, language and economy begins.

Climate Migration: climate change and climate variability are already an integral part of the complex interrelated factors that trigger conflicts causing migration and refugee situations. Increasing climate variability resulting in water and food scarcity, may compound already existing social, economic and political tensions, spurring violence, economic dislocations, social unrest and leading to mass exodus. In particular, water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions, which in combination with a broad set of religious and socio-political factors culminated in a devastating civil war.